She moans and he almost falters in rhythm, the long, low sound of her enjoyment tickling through him like mellifluous honey.
Her fingers tangle with his.
He's pushing inside and lost in the elastic cling of her surrounding him, her whole body quivering, goosebumps rising out over her flesh, everywhere he touches her.
She gasps his name into the sweaty curve of his neck.
"Castle."
His name, every time he slides back in.
"Castle."
She shudders around him, squeezes him in an aching grip, her spasming muscles kissing and shying away only to come back and do it again.
Harder.
Unrelenting.
The most beautiful he has ever seen her. Eyes wide and skin warm and wet and he's in love with her.
Kate Beckett - the fevered beauty falling apart in his arms.
He's in love with her.
Her head is still down, forehead mashed to his clavicle. Barely breathing. Beckett shudders through every inward surge, squeezing when he's buried to the hilt. Clinging like she'll never let him go.
Trapped in a silken vice, she tightens and tightens only to release with startling speed as she rolls the lower half of her body into him with a dirty, resonating slap.
Fuck.
Beckett's teeth sink into his skin but she doesn't bite down. Her mouth opens and she uses him like an anchor, wet breath and the press of her tongue, hot.
Intoxicating
Her hands rise up from their death grip on his shoulders and he's not sure where she's going next, what she's doing, he's not even sure he cares anymore as long as they do it like this.
Together.
She feels so good, so warm and close and she ripples like rapid water, pools around him in blistering heat until he's bubbling up and boiling over.
Drowning in her.
Her wrists lock at the base of his neck, fingers weaving to cradle the back of his head. Her thumbs graze his jaw, rough over the light dusting of stubble.
Just as quickly as she dropped her head and hid her face from him, Beckett's rising up and startling him with the raw, naked, yearning flame that dances in an emerald green shimmer.
He's in love with her.
He slides out, holding onto the narrow grooves of her hips and the electric connection that crackles between their hooded eyes. Flaring from pupil to pupil, melting and sizzling everything in between.
She feels so good when he's inside her but he holds off pushing back in, torments them both for the longest seconds.
Her mouth is wet, shining and sinful, cheeks livid red.
He wants to kiss her.
Castle eases back - slowly this time - savoring the prickling burn of every inch, earning himself another gasp and Beckett's teeth sink down into her lip and she moans.
He stays buried deep, as close as they have ever been, noses tip to tip, hips aligned and thighs sliding against each other.
He's close enough to see the contrast of glazed pleasure and startling realisation wash through her.
Castle pulls her in tight, crowds himself around her, over her.
Inside her.
He circles his hips and is rewarded with the sweetest clench of spasming muscle he has ever felt. He does it again. A shorter circle. A tighter thrust, barely more than a rock up onto the tips of his toes.
Her legs struggle around him, pulling him impossibly closer, trapping and tangling them together.
Beckett's nails sink into the tender skin of his cheeks, sharp and unforgiving and she starts to work herself back and forth along his length.
His eyes snap shut and he withdraws, his tip grazing her before he plunges back inside. Another short, sharp circle of hips, her pressing down and grinding on him.
A squeeze, a nip of teeth.
Oh yes, just like that.
They find their rhythm, the gloriously fast, synchronized in and out of their snapping, contorting, absorbing and invading bodies.
"Fuck, Kate. Don't stop." He begs and delight simmers through her.
Whatever war she was raging, whatever tiny, little bit of herself she had been holding back snaps and the mask falls. With crystal clarity he sees the hurt and the fear hidden behind her anger.
And more, something more.
Castle catches the tinge of it, a spark so desperately close to what he feels for her that he falters. His whole body shocked.
His rhythm peters out, gets sloppy - she whimpers, nails clawing back her control - and the mask slides back into place.
Too late.
He's already seen beyond.